The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is the most powerful phablet available on Verizon, but you'll pay a heavy price for it.

With a gorgeous screen, top-notch specs, and a capable stylus that will help you stay productive, the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 ($696; 32GB) is the best phablet on Verizon Wireless—for the moment. It's the first of a slew of new large, high-end smartphones, so unless the S Pen stylus is a must-have, you should keep your powder dry until you see the full array of smartphones coming out over the next few weeks. That said, it is the best phablet you can buy on Verizon right now, and thus it earns our Editors' Choice.

Most of the Verizon Galaxy Note 5's features are the same as the international model we recently tested. We'll focus here on what makes the Verizon model different. Read our international Galaxy Note 5 preview for all of our other assessments.

To recap: The Galaxy Note 5 has a blisteringly fast 2.1GHz Samsung Exynos 7420 processor, a gorgeous 5.7-inch, 2,560-by-1,440-pixel screen, and two excellent cameras. As with previous Galaxy Note models, its S Pen stylus allows for writing and drawing applications that no other mainstream phablet supports. But the phone is heavy and expensive, and many users of older Galaxy Note devices are irked by the elimination of removable battery and storage options, as the phone tops out at 64GB.

Physically, the Note 5 is identical to the international model except for a "Verizon 4G LTE" logo on the back. Like the other models, it comes in white or black.

Editors' Note: The slideshow below is of the international Galaxy Note 5.

Call Quality, Networking, and BatterySamsung has always made excellent voice phones with top-notch reception. The Note 5 continues this trend. Voices are bright and sharp, noise cancellation is aggressive and accurate, and the speakerphone is loud enough to use almost anywhere.

The Note 5 offers Verizon's "advanced calling," otherwise known as voice-over-LTE (VoLTE), which promises HD-quality calling and one-way video streaming to other Verizon VoLTE devices. When calling a landline, though, we found the VoLTE system to be quieter and less sharp than Verizon's traditional voice calling system. Peak volume measured at about 2dB lower than with VoLTE turned off, and voices sounded muddier.

The Note 5 supports both Verizon's CDMA and LTE networks, as well as international GSM, HSPA, and LTE networks. Verizon's Note 5 model has the weakest set of LTE frequency bands of the carrier versions we tested, but the best battery life. With LTE bands 2/3/4/7/13, this Note 5 is clearly designed for Verizon's network and also for some foreign LTE roaming, but it will not work optimally on other U.S. networks. The AT&T and T-Mobile versions have more international roaming bands, most notably bands 1, 8, and 20. While most foreign networks are on bands 3 or 7—and will thus work fine with the Verizon phone—the additional bands will get you faster speeds in Japan, South Korea, and some European countries.

The 3,000mAh battery fared well in testing, at 7 hours, 35 minutes of LTE video streaming. That's better than we saw with the AT&T or T-Mobile models, and better than both the iPhone 6 Plus (at 4 hours, 33 minutes) and the Droid Turbo (at 7 hours, 13 minutes). The Verizon Galaxy S6 edge+ had even longer battery life, at over eight hours. Quick charging works very well with the included power adapter. In testing, the fully depleted Note 5 reached a full charge in 80 minutes.

Android and BloatwareVerizon's model of the Galaxy Note 5 runs Android 5.1.1 with the heaviest bloatware load of the three carrier devices we've tested so far: 8.79GB of its 32GB is occupied by preloads. Bizarrely, that doesn't include the one you'd most want, Samsung Pay. Verizon told us that it's still assessing Samsung's highly anticipated mobile payment system and might provide it in an update, but it's giving no assurance.

Instead of the ability to pay at any credit card terminal with Samsung Pay, you get six Amazon apps and eleven Verizon-branded apps you can't delete, as well as four games you can delete. Verizon also replaces the default messaging client with its own proprietary Messages+. The Samsung SMS client and Google Hangouts are both hanging out in folders on the device, though, so you can swap them in if you want.

Fortunately, All of these preloads don't impact benchmark performance. Each of our carrier models of the Galaxy Note 5 benchmarked the same. Antutu benchmark scores were between 67k-69k, Geekbench scores were in the 1,450 range, and the Note 5 scored 37 fps in the GFXBench T-Rex test. Among phones currently available today, only the Apple iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, with Apple's A8 processor, scored higher. No other Android device can keep up on processor scores, although the high screen resolution gives the phone a bit of a disadvantage against devices with lower-res screens when it comes to graphics tests.

Pricing, Competition, and ConclusionsVerizon recently killed off subsidies, making everyone pay full price for their devices. That means the $696 Galaxy Note 5, the $768 Galaxy S6 edge+, and the $749 iPhone 6 Plus have a lot to prove when faced with less expensive competitors, most notably the forthcoming $399 Moto X Style, the $552 LG G4, the rumored Huawei Nexus 6, and whatever comes next in Verizon's Droid series. Not to mention any new iPhones.

The Note 5 is a gorgeous phablet, and the S Pen is its unique strength. If you like the idea of writing on the screen of your phone, nothing else will satisfy in quite the same way. That power is wrapped up with the best phablet camera available today, an incredibly fast processor, and an attractive, premium design.

We're giving the Note 5 an Editor's Choice for phablets on Verizon Wireless because that's a really compelling mix of features. But we're also advising you to hold off for a bit if you can. Especially if you don't need the S Pen, you may be able to save some money and still get a very high-quality Android phablet in the coming weeks.

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About the Author

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed hundreds of smartphones, tablets and other gadgets in more than 13 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks project, hosts our One Cool Thing daily Web show, and writes opinions on tech and society.
Segan is also a multiple award-winning travel writer. Other than ... See Full Bio

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 (Verizon ...

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 (Verizon Wireless)

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